TY - JOUR

T1 - Cognitive Predictors of Child Second Language Comprehension and Syntactic Learning

AU - Pili-Moss, Diana

N1 - Funding Information: The present study is based on an analysis of data from the author's PhD dissertation. I thank the audiences of AAAL 2018 (Chicago) and of the Child Language Symposium 2018 (Reading) for their discussion. I am grateful to Kara Morgan‐Short, Michael Ullman, and Judit Kormos for comments on a previous draft, to Jarrad Lum and Kara Morgan‐Short for generously sharing parts of their experimental paradigms with me, to Michael Ratajczak for discussion on aspects of the data analysis, and to the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. All errors remain my own. Preparation of the manuscript was supported by an ESRC postdoctoral grant awarded to the author. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Language Learning published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

PY - 2021/9

Y1 - 2021/9

N2 - This study examined the role of child cognitive abilities for procedural and declarative learning in the earliest stages of second language (L2) exposure. In the context of a computer game, 53 first language Italian monolingual children were aurally trained in a novel miniature language over 3 consecutive days. A mixed effects model analysis of the relationship between cognitive predictors and outcomes in morphosyntax measured via a grammaticality judgment test (GJT) was performed. Relative to adults trained in the same paradigm, children with higher procedural learning ability (measured via an alternate serial reaction time task) showed significantly better learning of word order, although the effect size was small. Modeling accuracy in online sentence comprehension during the game also evidenced that higher procedural learning ability was positively associated with significantly better outcomes as practice progressed. By contrast, a composite measure of verbal and visual declarative learning ability did not predict L2 outcomes in either the GJT or the online measure. © 2021 The Authors. Language Learning published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

AB - This study examined the role of child cognitive abilities for procedural and declarative learning in the earliest stages of second language (L2) exposure. In the context of a computer game, 53 first language Italian monolingual children were aurally trained in a novel miniature language over 3 consecutive days. A mixed effects model analysis of the relationship between cognitive predictors and outcomes in morphosyntax measured via a grammaticality judgment test (GJT) was performed. Relative to adults trained in the same paradigm, children with higher procedural learning ability (measured via an alternate serial reaction time task) showed significantly better learning of word order, although the effect size was small. Modeling accuracy in online sentence comprehension during the game also evidenced that higher procedural learning ability was positively associated with significantly better outcomes as practice progressed. By contrast, a composite measure of verbal and visual declarative learning ability did not predict L2 outcomes in either the GJT or the online measure. © 2021 The Authors. Language Learning published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Language Learning Research Club, University of Michigan

KW - Didactics of English as a foreign language

KW - child L2 learning

KW - declarative learning ability

KW - implicit statistical learning

KW - L2 cognitive aptitude

KW - procedural learning ability

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110264890&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/7a06e5c1-20a4-3f92-aa38-81fb77515c71/

U2 - 10.1111/lang.12454

DO - 10.1111/lang.12454

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 71

SP - 907

EP - 945

JO - Language Learning - a journal of research in language studies

JF - Language Learning - a journal of research in language studies

SN - 0023-8333

IS - 3

ER -